Limelight
by chochowilliams
Summary: 7th & final in the Building A Family series. Sequel to "Because of You". Riku has some girl trouble. An ex-girlfriend claims to be pregnant with his child. Good natured he may be, but Riku does not intend to take responsibility for another man's child. Drama, Romance, Heterosexual relationships, No sexual content, Mention of slash, OOC OCs, Mentions of sexual acts, Language


**Limelight**

**Sequel to:** "Because of You"

**Building a Family series**

**Written by:** Chochowilliams

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Gravitation _or the characters, places or names. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

**Summary: **Riku has some girl trouble. An ex-girlfriend claims to be pregnant with his child. Good natured he may be, but Riku does not intend to take responsibility for another man's child.

**Warning:** Drama, Romance, Heterosexual relationships, No sexual content, Mention of slash, OOC OCs, Mentions of sexual acts, Language

**Pairings:** Riku/OFC, past Riku/OFC, mentions of Shuichi/Eiri

**Inserts: **recap from "Because of You"

**A/N: **This is the seventh and final fic in the Building a Family series. In order they are: "Parental Revenge", "In the Closet", "Give In To Me", "My Heart Beats Like A Drum", _This I Promise You, Because of You_, "Limelight". I love this series. It's so sad that it's come to an end.

**oOo**

**Last Time**

As he passed the staircase, he saw Riku pacing back and forth across the foyer. Eiri gave a disgusted sigh. His son was _still_ on the phone. Whom he was speaking to all this time, Eiri had no idea, but the light blush that colored his face had Eiri's eyebrows rising.

Riku had miraculously completely healed from his compression fracture without any lasting side effects and had plans of returning to New York in a few weeks to finish his last semester at NYU and then come January, he would move here to Japan permanently to get his masters degree. Eiri was not sure if Riku planned to get his own place or not. They had not talked about it. Yoshiki was already whining about being left all alone.

**oOo**

**July - Red Dragon Cyber Café - Tokyo, Japan**

Life just could not get any better.

Twenty-four year old Riku Shindou-Uesugi né Kitazawa could not find fault with his life at the current moment. He had just secured a job as an English teacher at Kazunori Tanabiya All Boys School here in Tokyo. His girlfriend of five years, Tasha Tunks-Mori, had agreed to be his wife. That psychotic bitch, Karin Rinjin-who'd tried to murder his otokasan, Shuichi Shindou, five years ago, and who very nearly put Riku in a wheelchair permanently because of some fucked up "revenge scheme" she'd cooked up-was locked up in a maximum security prison far, far away from him and his family.

He had no complaints.

…Until Naho Tsuburaya came waltzing into the new Red Dragon Cyber Café late one summer afternoon with a devilish smirk twisting her lips and a smug air about her.

She made a beeline straight for him where he was sitting in a back corner sipping a latté, her chocolate eyes twinkling and her hips swishing sensuously as if she were dancing.

Once upon a time, the mere sight of the voluptuousness and sensuality that she exuded like a pheromone would have had Riku on his knees at her feet begging please, but instead he found himself sneering and sick to his stomach at the mere sight of her.

Naho was his ex-girlfriend. Her mother-the only child of a rocket scientist and a nuclear physicist-was an attorney specializing in accident victims. Basically, she was an ambulance chaser. Naho's father was a development tycoon. Rich and drop dead gorgeous, Naho was all that and a bag of chips. She had it going on…except for in her head. There wasn't anything going on there. Unfortunately, Naho was all looks and money, but no smarts-smarties maybe, but brains? No. To put it bluntly, Naho Tsuburaya was dumber than dirt and had an IQ of a rock-quite literally.

They'd dated for a month after he'd returned to Japan after graduating from New York University with his bachelor's degree-if you call heavy make out sessions wherever they could find a flat surface, be it horizontal or vertical, dating. A month; that was all Riku had been able to stand of Naho Tsuburaya.

Dating her had been like eating dirt.

Their "relationship" reminded Riku of a story he'd read years ago. An unpopular high school girl had a crush on the Varsity football quarterback. It took the girl losing fifty pounds due to food poisoning and changing the way she dressed due to sun poisoning over the course of the summer for her crush to realize she existed and when they started dating, she quickly came to realize that her crush was not the god she'd made him out to be. In fact, he turned out to be a right jerk. Riku's story was much the same-just substitute "jerk" for "brain dead idiot".

"Riku! Darling," Naho drawled as she saddled up to his table.

"Tsuburaya," Riku greeted with a barely noticeable nod.

He hadn't seen Naho since he broke things off with her. Now here she was waltzing back into his life as if she hadn't been gone.

How had she even found him-?

Scratch that. Never mind. He was Riku Shindou-Uesugi, eldest child of Shuichi Shindou and Eiri Yuki. Therefore, his every movement was monitored. It was enough to make a bloke feel like Martha Stewart.

It was such a pain in the ass.

If Naho noticed the emotionless tone of his voice, she made no indication of it. Instead, she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down, all the while smiling widely. She looked as if she had just won the lottery.

Riku scowled. Just what was she up to?

Again, Naho ignored the clear signs her presence and company were not welcome. Instead, she folded her arms on the tabletop and smiled across the table at him.

His patience growing thin and his anger rising, Riku drilled his fingers against the tabletop when the minutes ticked by and his ex-girlfriend remained silent. "So? Was there something you wanted?" he demanded to know through clenched teeth. He was trying to be civil.

Naho grinned, showing off her unnaturally white teeth. "I have _wonderful_ news," she gushed.

"…That's nice," he said in the same monotone voice he used when greeting her earlier. "And you're telling me this wonderful news...why?"

"Because it involvesyou."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Riku leaned back and regarded her with a critical and suspicious eye and a cocked eyebrow. "Really?" The only wonderful news that she might have that would involve him would be her being shipped to Antarctica-permanently.

Practically dancing in her seat, Naho squealed, "I'm pregnant."

There was a sudden influx of excited whispering through the café. Several of the patrons called out their congratulations. Riku didn't. He was waiting for the punch line or at the very least, for her to help him link what her pregnancy had to do with him, because at the moment, he couldn't see it. They hadn't seen each other in over five years and _this_ was the first thing out of her mouth? Maybe if they had remained friends, or something. "Oh-kay…," he drawled when she remained stubbornly silent. "And…?"

The toothy grin that Naho has sported since she sashayed her way inside the café floundered. "Riku?"

"Tsuburaya."

Naho's smile was strained. "C'mon, Riku. Love."

"Look, Tsuburaya, congratulations on your pregnancy, but I don't see what it has to do with me. Now if you'll excuse me-?"

"But it does," Naho argued.

There was an air of desperation about her now. She searched his face frantically. What she was looking for, Riku wasn't sure and frankly, he didn't care either way. What he did care about was the vise-like grip she had on his arm. Riku stared down at the hand on his arm. She'd jumped out of her seat and grabbed his arm in an attempt to keep him from leaving. Naho blushed, but didn't drop her hold. In fact, she moved to hold his hand within both of hers. She stood there before him with her head hanging low. "Please, Riku," she pleaded. She raised her head and glanced at him. The twinkle was back, but this time it took the form of unshed tears sparkling in the light from the lamp hanging over their table from the ceiling.

Riku sneered at her blushing virgin act. He sneered at the tears. He sneered at her in general. "What do you want me to say Tsuburaya?" Riku demanded angrily. He was going to have to disinfect his whole person when he got home.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Riku rolled his eyes at it.

"Please don't be that way, Riku," she whispered.

Riku stared at her sharply. "What way?" he demanded.

"Like this. This cold, uncaring person," she explained in that soft girlie voice of hers.

Riku ripped his hand out of her grip. "I'll act any way I damn well please when I'm being accused of a crime I didn't commit," he snapped. Riku had to pause once he heard the words he'd uttered. It was only then that he realized he did know what her announcement had to do with him. The idea that she would try to rope him into something such as this infuriated him. One of the reasons why he'd dumped her ass was because she'd been caught red-handed as the skanky gold digging bitch she was. And here she was at it again.

Watery brown eyes stared up at him in confusion. "What? Riku? I-I don't-How could-?"

"Look, we 'dated' _five years ago_. Count them. Five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five." Riku raised a finger for each number he counted off. "See them? Five." He wiggled all five fingers at his ex. Riku knew he was being unnecessarily cruel, but he'd learned long ago when dealing with Naho, one had to be blunt. Otherwise, she wouldn't get it. If that came across as cruel to some, then so be it. A man had to do what a man had to do when dealing with a brainless dimwit. "Do you know what this means?" he asked rhetorically. "This means," he continued without waiting for a response, "that I am not in contention as one of the possible fathers."

Naho was openly sobbing now. Her whole body was trembling. The sight had the opposite effect Riku knew Naho was going for. It infuriated Riku.

He was well aware of the whispers and evil eyes from the other patrons, but Riku ignored every one of them. What did he care what people he did not even know thought? They could "eat shit and die" as his father had told Rinjin at her trial.

"Had you gotten pregnant when we _were_ dating, I'd still deny the child as mine. Want to know why?" Again, he asked it as a rhetorical question. Leaning forward, Riku stated slowly as if explaining something to a child, "Because to create a baby, a man and a woman need to have sexual intercourse, but the only sort of penetration we had was not the kind that would end up with a bun in your oven."

By this time, Naho's superb and nearly flawless performance as the glowing expectant mother-to-be that had quickly been followed up by the jilted lover had disintegrated into the raging bull that now stood before him. Her face was flushed with anger. Her eyes hard. "How dare you," she hissed with angry tears in her eyes.

"Easily," Riku shot back.

"You-"

"Me?" Smirking, Riku cocked an eyebrow.

"How can you-?"

"Hm?"

"-just-"

"Just?"

Naho growled at him, her eyes narrowed at him dangerously.

Riku grinned widely.

"This is your child," Naho stated firmly, "whether you want to admit it or not."

The good mood that had built up during this last repartee disappeared instantly. His eyes narrowed right back at her. "And whether _you_ want to admit it or not, I am _not_ the father." Naho opened her mouth to speak, but Riku was not finished. "But seeing as you are so adamant, you won't mind having a paternity test done to prove it."

Panic flashed across her face swiftly before Naho was able to school her expression. "You do that," she sneered.

"I will," Riku told her calmly. "You'll be hearing from my lawyers within the week. Good day." With a nod, he swept past his supposed pregnant ex-girlfriend who was still fuming angrily at the back of the café.

Riku couldn't stop from chuckling-that was, until he stepped out of the air-conditioned café and onto the sweltering summer sidewalk. That was when the anger and alarm set in-angry that Naho Tsuburaya would pull this kind of crap and panic about how this could affect his relationship with his fiancée.

As he hurried down the sidewalk, he pulled out his cellphone and managed to dial his otokasan's number after several failed attempts due to shaky fingers. Riku just hoped he wasn't in the middle of a recording session. That was the only reason why Shuichi Shindou wouldn't pick up. The singer could be in the middle of an interview on live television and he would still answer his phone.

"_Yeah Riku?"_ asked the overtly cheery voice in his ear.

Riku breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey _Otokasan_…" Letting his voice trail off, Riku combed his fingers through his hair.

"_Yeah?"_

"You remember Naho?"

"_Tsuburaya?"_

"Yeah."

"_Sure. She was the one that your father said made Ryuichi look like Albert Einstein."_

Even though it hadn't been funny in the least at the time, Riku found himself chuckling at the comparison now. His father had never had a very high opinion of Ryuichi Sakuma or Naho Tsuburaya. He still didn't.

"_What about her? She suddenly grow a brain?"_

Riku burst out laughing. Place that under Getting Your Hopes Up Too High. "Actually, she ambushed me in the Red Dragon just now."

"_The cyber café that just opened not far from NG?"_

"That's the one."

"_What she want?"_

Riku could hear the sneer and suspicion in his otokasan's voice and grinned, but the cheerful mood slipped away quickly. "She claimed-She's going around spouting crap about me being the father of her baby." He cringed as he uttered the words aloud for the first time.

There was silence and then-

"_What?!"_

Pulling the phone away from his ear, Riku winced as he went temporarily deaf in his left ear. "Yeah. That's the same reaction I had."

"_And?"_

"And nothing! It's not mine. I haven't seen or spoken to her in five years!" He hesitated before saying the next. Neither of his fathers had ever cared much about hearing about their son's sex life just like he and his younger siblings dreaded hearing about their parents'-even though that seemed to be inevitable as their parents couldn't seem to keep their hands off one another for more than five seconds at a time. "Besides, it's not like we ever slept together anyway," he mumbled.

"_Good,"_ Shuichi said in a firm voice.Hethen sighed before mumbling something Riku couldn't make out. Riku wondered if he even wanted to know. _"Okay. I'll call your father and-"_

Riku winced. Heads were going to roll now. Eiri Uesugi was fiercely protective of his family.

"_-have him get in contact with our lawyers. For now, stay away from Tsuburaya."_

That went without saying, Riku snorted. "No problem."

"_And call Tasha,"_ Shuichi ordered.

Riku nodded with a wince. Speaking of heads rolling…

"_Don't worry Riku. She'll crawl back into whatever drain she crawled out of once we're done with her."_

Riku almost felt sorry for the poor girl. Almost.

**oOo**

**A Year Later - Riku Shindou-Uesugi's Residence - Tokyo, Japan**

"And in entertainment news this evening," the anchorman was saying, "Naho Tsuburaya, daughter of millionaire development tycoon Hiroji Tsuburaya, dropped her paternity suite against ex-boyfriend Riku Shindou-Uesugi, son of singer Shuichi Shindou and novelist Eiri Yuki, after it was proven through a paternity test that he was not in fact the father of her child, something Riku has denied all along. Mr. Eiri Yuki stated to reporters this afternoon that they plan on countersuing Ms. Tsuburaya…"

Riku smirked smugly at the television.

"I feel kinda sorry for Tsuburaya," stated a soft voice around a yawn.

Riku scoffed at his fiancée who was sitting besides him on the sofa. "Are you kidding? Why the hell would you feel sorry for that whore after what she did?"

Tasha shrugged. Drawing her legs up underneath her, the twenty-six year old biologist brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she turned to look at her fiancé. "Because I do."

Riku shook his head. "Whatever," he muttered. He draped an arm around Tasha's shoulders and hugged her close.

Hugging an arm around Riku's waist, she laid her head against his shoulder and sighed happily. "I guess it's just…"

"Just?"

"Life isn't going to be easy for her now. Her name slandered and dragged through the mud, hackled and jeered…"

Riku snorted. "Yeah, well, she brought it onto herself." Naho Tsuburaya deserved everything that came her way.

"Yeah, I know, but I still-I still feel sorry for her."

"Don't," Riku told her. "This is just what she wanted."

"And what's that?" Tasha asked, tipping her head back to look at him.

"Her fifteen minutes."

Tasha hummed softly.

"Think of it as Tiger Wood's million and one mistresses all coming out of the woodwork," Riku continued. "What did they get out of coming forward and selling their story to every Tom, Dick and Yuri? Nothing but their fifteen minutes in the spotlight."

Tasha tightened his hold on her fiancé and snuggled deeper into his side.

She knew he was right. Tsuburaya had brought this onto herself and she most likely did do it for the very reason Riku claimed. It made sense. After all, Tsuburaya did have aspirations of becoming an actress. Her thirst-her insatiable hunger, for face time-for infamy was such that she had even seduced Riku into her bed-before he found out the truth and kicked the slut to the curb.

But still…

That didn't stop her for feeling sorry for Naho Tsuburaya. Of course, that did not mean that she was going to go out of her way to become Naho Tsuburaya's best friend. Hell to the no. That chick could go to hell for all she cared. Nobody tried to steal her man. Nobody.

"_She's going to fit in just fine, Riku,"_ she remembered Tohma Seguchi saying about her once. _"She and Eiri have a lot in common."_

Tasha smiled at the memory. "I love you," she whispered.

Riku gave her a lopsided smile. "Love you, too."

The couple kissed chastely, happy to have leaped over the hurtle with ease even though they could have fallen flat on their faces. Instead of this incident ripping them apart, it had only drawn them closer together.

…**The End**


End file.
